


outcast, unwanted

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Medieval, F/M, Fantasy Racism, Fem!Dave, Knights - Freeform, Period-Typical Sexism, Porn with a dash of plot, half orc!karkat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:53:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23358076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: “Your swordworks sloppy,” she says, along with a very deliberate slight smirk.He takes two steps, his long legs eating up the ground between them, and he swings at her without hesitation. She brings up her sword to block. He telegraphs his movements so obviously. The hit reverberates through her bones, it’s so fucking heavy.He snarls into her face. “You fight like a bird. All flighty and light.”
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 13
Kudos: 65





	outcast, unwanted

**Author's Note:**

> For Sunhours

Dave gets down on one knee and is sworn in as a knight to the throne. It isn’t said, but everyone knows that it’s as the youngest knight to ever be sworn in. A new record. She keeps her expression neutral and impassive, as if this is just a matter of course to her. An inevitability not worth pausing to notice. Of course she’s the youngest knight to ever be sworn in. Why wouldn’t she be? She’s hot shit. 

Queen Lalonde hands off the sword to an aide after touching it to her shoulders, gesturing for her glass of wine to be handed back to her with her other hand. Dave stands back up. 

“Lovely work, darling,” she says, smiling, punch drunk and soft and easy. “I’m sure you’ll make your family proud.” 

Dave’s only family, her brother, died years ago in service to the throne. He died the ideal death, a bloody sacrifice surrounded by the corpses of his enemies, whereas so many other aristocrats die of gout in their own beds, gray and balding and as confused as a toddler. He went out on a high note. The way everyone should want to die. 

There’s a palpable awkward pause as everyone else in the room remembers the fact that the first Sir Strider died for the woman dressed in a glittering pink ball gown standing in front of Sir Strider’s little sister, and said glittering pink woman is very clearly far too sauced to remember this herself. The only person who dares makes a sound is the princess herself, not even bothering to try and disguise her disgusted scoff. 

“Thanks,” Dave says flatly, breaking through the breathless silence as everyone waits for her to take offense or something. As if she’s delicate, emotional, so easily hurt. If she were, she never would’ve gotten to where she is now. Her brother never would have allowed her to grow into being someone so fragile in the first place. They seem to think that she’s some sort of fancy gentlewoman here by accident or mistake, instead of a scarred, newly knighted warrior ready to dent her armor and wet her sword with blood. 

Well, whatever. She’ll enjoy their gobsmacked looks when she proves them all wrong. 

“Don’t let me hold up the party!” the queen calls out. “Come now, don’t look so stiff! Have some drinks, relax. This is a festive occasion, after all. A celebration, for our first lady knight.” 

Everyone breaks out into relieved smiles and cheers as Dave feels herself go tense and cold. 

Not the youngest ever knight. The first  _ lady _ knight. 

Karkat didn’t have a sword instructor, growing up. He scraped and saved for months and months, and was finally able to buy a blunt, cheap, heavy sword from the local blacksmith. He’d go out back behind the farm and swing it over and over again, fumbling it and cutting himself until his hands grew calloused and scarred and his grip was firm and steady. 

It doesn’t matter if he wasn’t trained by an expert (except for how it does), and it doesn’t matter that his clothes are old and threadbare and simple (except for how it does), and it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t speak with the lilting accent of the capital (except for how it does). 

What matters is that he’s a half orc. He’s big, even if he’s small for a half orc. He’s strong, even if he never got enough food to really feel full throughout his entire childhood. He can walk and he can talk and he can swing a sword and he’s sturdy as fuck. Even if humans think he’s just a stupid thug, he’s pretty much guaranteed a place in the army. Half orcs were born to be canon fodder, is the saying. 

Karkat is pretty much guaranteed a place in the army. It would be easy, getting in. Too bad that he’s too ambitious for that. He’s not going to settle for being one in a sea of thousands of green faces, expendable and forgettable and interchangeable. He applies to become a knight of the Lalonde court. 

They snort and roll their eyes and deny him at first. But he digs his heels in and he  _ shouts, _ furious and stubborn, and they grow wide eyed and pale and eventually give into giving him a chance. 

He’s not supposed to take that chance and run with it, he knows. He wasn’t supposed to succeed, to pass the tests. He’s just a stupid thug. He had no master swordsman to train him as a child, no tutor, no education. He doesn’t care. He’s got ambitions, and wants, and passion, and determination. He’s not going to be one green face in a sea of expendable people. He’s going to be someone. He doesn’t care how hard fate and humanity and sneering nobles fight him on it every single step of the way. 

He’s stubborn, and he’s angry, and he wins, eventually. 

Sir Karkat. The first half orc knight of the throne. He treats everyone to his finest jagged, tusked, spiteful smile, and everyone looks back at him with furrowed brows and pinched lips and quiet whispers to each other, and the queen laughs and claps him delicately on the back, before going to pass out and snore on her chaise lounge, wine spilling out from her glass onto the floor as everyone around her politely doesn’t notice. Her daughter, Princess Rose, sighs and leaves early. 

There’s a certain camaraderie, with fellow knights. They sleep in the barracks together, they eat in the same hall together, they train together, they ride out on horseback together to patrol and slay and battle. They slap each other's back and jest and lean on each other when they’re too drunk to stand. They’re friends. 

Dave doesn’t do any of that. She’s too cool for that bullshit. Smiling, laughing, affection. Lame kiddy stuff. Her brother didn’t do it either, she knows. He was a lone wolf. He didn’t need anyone but himself. Not tied down, not burdened. Independent. Strong. She wakes before everyone else, she trains for longer than everyone else, and she eats her meals elsewhere, enjoying the quiet, really. Really. 

It doesn’t matter that none of them ever reach out to touch her, invite her to drinks, toss a joke her way with an inviting, friendly grin. She doesn’t want it. That’s for weaklings. 

There’s one other knight that doesn’t do any of those things either. He’s got a scowl constantly twisting up his face as if he’s got a perpetual migraine, and when he walks past the other knights, they turn their backs to him. Oh yeah, and he’s a fucking half orc. 

“Didn’t realize you guys were even allowed into the knighthood,” she comments one late afternoon as they’re the last two people in the training yard yet again, the rest heading off to eat without them. They normally just grunt and train in silence, ignoring each other. The words just slipped out of her. 

“No law against it,” he snaps, like she’s insinuating something. 

“A very chill and not at all overly defensive response,” she replies dryly. 

“Fucking excuse me for not happily accepting your oh so casual observations, you smug shitlord,” he spits. 

He’s really reading more into this than she meant. It’s sort of thrilling though, so different from the distant politeness of the other knights, like they think she’s a lady in need of coddling. He’s swearing at her and glaring at her like she kicked his dog and there’s heat stirring in the pit of her stomach, for some reason. 

“Your swordworks sloppy,” she says, along with a very deliberate slight smirk. 

He takes two steps, his long legs eating up the ground between them, and he swings at her without hesitation. She brings up her sword to block. He telegraphs his movements so  _ obviously.  _ The hit reverberates through her bones, it’s so fucking heavy. 

He  _ snarls _ into her face. “You fight like a bird. All flighty and light.” 

She twists her wrist, disengages, slips in through his guard, and punches him in the face. He shouts and curses, blood spilling down his face, and he drops his sword and lunges for her. He brings her down onto the ground, the great oversized weight of him, and he somehow startles a  _ laugh _ out of her, uncool and unstoic and everything a Strider isn’t. She’d almost be embarrassed, except for how the half orc is so, so much more flustered than her, infuriated and grunting with effort. He growls like a feral dog and shoves her face into the mud. She elbows him roughly in the gut so that his breath leaves him a great gust, and flips them over. 

Dave’s never sparred with a fellow knight before. It turns out that it’s  _ fun.  _

That damned smirking asshole knight keeps badgering Karkat after that. She provokes and taunts him into fighting her when all of the other knights have left the training yard, and then she has the fucking gall to give him tips, telling him how to hold the pommel, how to angle his wrist, showing off and demonstrating tricks  _ on him.  _

Why he actually sits next to her during meals, that can only be chalked up to some sort of twisted self flagellating masochism. It turns out that when he’s not doing his level best to break her jaw, she just  _ won’t shut up. _ And of course he has to challenge the bullshit she constantly spews, which means that by the time either of them finally get around to eating, the food is cold and disgusting. 

Not that it’s all that good warm either. 

“Are you always constipated, or is that just what your face always looks like?” she asks him, except for how she  _ isn’t _ asking him because she doesn’t stop to hear an answer. “Is it the food? Are we missing some sort of essential part of your half orc dietary needs and so you’re just completely blocked up--” 

“It’s my _ face,” _ he interrupts her, because that’s really the only way to get a word in edgewise. “So if you’ve got anything against my ugly mug, you can suck it the fuck up.” 

“Awww, Karkat, don’t be so down on yourself, buddy. Even rats find mates, you know--” 

“Is everything alright?” 

They both turn in unison to look at the interloper. Another knight, some asshole whose name Karkat’s never bothered learning. He looks politely concerned, and he’s specifically looking at Dave. 

She snorts derisively. “Yeah, things are chill.” 

“Are you certain?” The knight’s gaze briefly skips over to Karkat, before hurriedly returning to Dave. Karkat is suddenly very aware of how close he and Dave are sitting to each other. She’s tall for a human, for a woman, and he’s short for a half orc, but he’s still taller than her. Looming over her and snarling and swearing into her impassive face, from the other knights perspectives. He looks towards them, all sitting far away from him and Dave. They’re shooting the quiet confrontation furtive glances. 

“I’m sure,” she says, and her voice is as cold as a tundra. 

“Right,” the knight says, and leaves them reluctantly alone, as if he’s not entirely sure that Dave’s correct. 

Karkat imagines how they’d all react if they walked in on one of his and Dave’s vicious sparring sessions, and almost bursts out into bitter laughter. 

“What a limp dicked snooping shithead,” she says, as if commenting on the weather. 

Karkat grunts, and buries his face in his meal. 

One of the duties of the knighthood is guarding the princess. It’s kind of boring, to be honest. She’s the bookish sort, preferring to stay indoors and knit or read or talk endlessly. Which is why the task is on rotation, so that no one’s stuck with the duty for too long, their swords rusting unused inside of their sheaths. 

She only requires two knights at a time, when she’s inside the castle that she almost never leaves. She doesn’t appreciate nature. Today, her guards are Dave and Karkat. Dave’s unsure if it’s a stroke of luck or not. On the one hand, Karkat’s presence is way more tolerable than the rest of the knights. On the other, she’s not supposed to speak unless spoken to while she’s in the presence of royalty, and there’s just something about Karkat that makes her want to never ever shut up. 

She’s determined to spend the day biting her tongue, bored out of her skull watching a princess flip pages and perhaps take her violin for a spin, and she pretty much immediately fucks up her resolve to keep her mouth shut once she enters the room, taking over the last two knights' post. 

The princess is lounging inside of the solarium, petting a purring cat in her lap while gently chiding it for being a hedonist, which is apparently an ultimately unfulfilling life philosophy that will in the end leave the creature feeling hollow and purposeless. And then a woman in the garb of a royal handmaiden enters, with tea and dainty little snacks. 

The woman is a half orc. 

“Woah,” says Dave. “Check it out, Karkat, you’re not the only one in the castle.” 

The handmaiden stops and blinks. Karkat makes a faint wheezing sound from underneath his helmet, showing that he’s just as shocked as Dave, although she really hopes that she’s doing a better job of hiding it than him. No,  _ surely _ she is. 

“Truly, the knighthood is brimming with tact and good manners,” Princess Rose remarks, looking very pointedly at Dave, which is maybe a very incredibly bad thing, but eh, whatever, she decides to lean into it. The only way out is through. She gestures for the handmaiden to approach her. 

“What’d you have to do to get dear old mother to allow you to have a half orc handmaiden? Is this some sort of rebellion thing?” 

Karkat makes another quiet, bitten back noise, angry this time, like he wants to throttle Dave very much, but can’t. It’s probably not very knightly to do that sort of thing in front of the cherished princess of the queendom. The handmaiden puts down the tray next to the princess, who immediately reaches out to pop a slice of some fruit into her mouth before she continues. 

Princess Rose makes a dainty and yet disdainful sound, the fancy version of a derisive snort. “Oh, please. I left my rebellious years behind me along with overly wrought teenage poetry and dramatics. I choose who my staff is because they are who I want, not to make some sort of statement. And I simply had to ask my mother after she was about two bottles deep, which only took waiting until noon.” 

Dave opens her mouth for another repartee, because this is much better than just standing around silently, even if she may or may not be digging a grave for herself with every word. 

“Dave,” Karkat grits out quietly. He sounds _ tense.  _

She isn’t in the habit of giving up, or flinching in the face of doing or saying something reckless or dangerous to someone who’s got a lot of power. It’s not fear or caution that makes her click her jaw shut. She’s learned to respond to fear and caution by ramping up, bluffing and puffing up her chest and  _ daring _ them to try. She isn’t intimidated. 

There’s something soft and strange in her chest that makes her close her mouth and shut up. 

Princess Rose gives her one last withering look, and then turns her attention back to her handmaiden as she pours a cup of tea for her. “Thank you, Kanaya,” she says softly. The handmaiden, who had been mostly carefully blank faced until now, smiles back at her just as softly and bows her head briefly. 

Besides her, Dave can feel the tension slowly bleed out of Karkat as the Princess continues not to look back at Dave. He was worried for her, she realizes. Not in the condescending, chivalrous way some idiotic men get about her, sometimes. Real concern. She doesn’t think that’s…  _ ever  _ happened to her before. 

She doesn’t know what to do or say about, except to keep her mouth shut for the rest of their post. That seems to be all that he wants. 

Dave is too fucking confident. She was born into money, he can see it on her. Her hands are scarred, calloused, and she’s lithely muscled. She wears no silks or jewels. But he hears her Capital accent, her voice fitting in effortlessly with all the other voices around her. He sees her refined posture, unthinking and flawless. He sees the way she holds her cutlery, her glass, thoughtlessly perfectly mannered. 

He sees the way she holds her sword, the way she moves it. Like she had a master to tutor her in her childhood. You can see money on people. They don’t even have to try and show it. 

(Which means that she, that everyone, can simply look at him and see that he doesn’t have money either. His face is fucking green, after all. Of course they can all see it, never mind his accent or his posture or his tablemanners or his fucking  _ stance.) _

Dave comes from money, and she’s too fucking confident, too cocky, too reckless. Talking to royalty like that, what was the fucking thinking? Does she want to give him a heart attack? Does she want to get herself  _ killed?  _

He doesn’t dwell on the fact that seeing her stupidly endanger herself like that left him shaken for the rest of the day. It’s just… secondhand anxiety, or something like that. Like watching someone walk unknowingly straight into a bear trap, or idiotically put their hand inside a gator’s maw and wincing in dreadful anticipation of the inevitable damage to come. That’s all. 

Dave can’t stop looking at Karkat. It’s just because he’s so tall, so large, so green. He stands out. That’s all. He naturally draws everyone’s eye. 

Except for how he doesn’t. At first he did, perhaps. But now all of the knights have become practiced at letting their eyes slide right over him, like he’s nothing, like he’s inconsequential, not worth the barest amount of attention or acknowledgment. They ignore him with ease, and she can’t stop looking at him. 

He’s just. Very strong. When he swings his sword, it has a weight to it, a  _ heft. _ It’s a dense, heavy thing, his sword. It’s supposed to be swung two handed, but he can fight with it while carrying a shield in his other hand, easily. 

Her sword is light and thin. She’s speed, elegance, strategy. He’s brawn, stubbornness, fury. 

Is she jealous? Why should she be? She wins about half of their fights, they’re evenly matched despite their differing styles. Her brother had been a large, strong man, but he’d fought the same way she does, with the same sort of sword. She’s not jealous of the way his build lets him fight. She just… can’t stop looking. 

At least he’s easy on the eyes, so it’s not a terrible problem or anything. 

Karkat’s just got done sparring with Dave, which means that he’s covered in mud, sweat, and bruises. He’s supposed to clean himself up. Wash the dirt off, change clothes. That’s what he was doing. Following the routine. 

“What the fuck are you doing here,” is all he can think to say to Dave, who is _ not _ following the routine. She’s not supposed to follow him here. He holds his shirt up in front of his chest defensively. He hasn’t had to change surrounded by the eyes of other people before, with how he always lingers after practice, training himself sore and exhausted until everyone else is gone. He and Dave had an unspoken understanding to stagger their arrivals to the changing rooms. Or at least, he thought they did. 

She’s  _ looking _ at him, red eyes intent. 

She takes her shirt off, and throws it right at his face while he’s busy spluttering. By the time he’s wrestled it away from himself, throwing it at the floor like it’s offended him, she’s taken her pants off as well. 

“I repeat, what the ass blistering FUCK do you think you’re doing!?” 

“Wanna get laid,” she says matter of factly. “Don’t you wanna get laid too? Fuck, you sure need it. I’ve never met a man more in need of a good fuck, I’m getting second hand virgin anxiety just by looking at you, it’s painful to witness.” 

_ “I’m not a virgin!” _

“Sure, okay, I totally believe you. Wanna take your pants off? Because it’s gonna make this way easier if you just go ahead and do that. Just a tip to someone who’s definitely had sex before.” 

He’s abruptly majorly pissed off by how _ casual _ she is about this. How dare she fucking spring this on him, so that he looks like the flabbergasted flustered moron and she gets to look calm and collected? Fuck her! 

Karkat gives her a vicious glare and takes his pants off. She grins, and she’s heart stoppingly beautiful, and he _ hates _ her. 

“Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking about--  _ mmph.”  _

Having a way to  _ shut her up _ now is priceless, though. He has to give her that. 

Her hands pluck at the hemline of his pants, finding a way to be obnoxious and bothersome even when he’s got her tongue in his mouth, and he wants to growl except it comes out as a pleased rumble instead, for some reason. She’s warm and close and smells like sweat and dust and that tasteless stew they have every morning and  _ Dave.  _

She slips her hand down into his pants, apparently too impatient to wait for him to take them off, and he can’t help but choke a bit as her sword calloused hand wraps around him. She draws back from the kiss with a laugh, and he’d bristle if it didn’t sound so lighthearted and happy, and also her hand is still on his cock, firm and  _ hers, _ it’s her hand on him. 

“Well, that’s a fucking handful,” she says. “What, do you use this thing as a blunt weapon? Bet they never see that coming, huh. People say ‘caught him with his pants down’ like it’s a bad thing, but it ain’t for you. That’s when you’re  _ armed.”  _

“Do you  _ ever _ shut up,” he groans. 

“You’re one to talk,” she says. “You can rant about one mediocre meal for hours.” 

“The shit they serve us can’t possibly be legally classified as food.” 

“Nnf, yes, hot. Keep talking about your pet peeves, it’s making me wet.” 

He goes in for a kiss to make her stop talking, because that went pretty well for him the last time he tried it. Instead, she dodges him, his lips landing on her cheek, and she ducks down to nibble at his throat. Her thumb caresses the tip of his cock, and his breath hitches. 

It feels so good to have someone else touch him there, to have  _ her _ touch him there, that it’s almost dizzying. It’s absolutely unacceptable. She has all of the leverage right now, and he’s not going to let that shit stand. He touches her back, his hand curling around her ribs, before sliding down her side, feeling the texture of scars as it travels down her skin towards between her legs. 

Despite all of her off topic word vomiting, his finger slips in with practically no resistance, with how slick she already is. 

She goes stiff, like she somehow hadn’t predicted him wanting to return the favor. She makes a sound like she’s going for a chuckle, but it’s a bit too breathless for that. 

“Man,” she says. “Warn a lady.” 

“I thought you wanted to get laid,” he says roughly, shooting for unaffected and missing by about a mile. 

“Yeah, but guys usually don’t really bother putting anything there besides their cocks.” 

He looks down at her doubtfully. “Pretty sure I’d split you apart if I tried that.” 

She barks a surprised laugh at that. Her real one, not that cool and unaffected chuckle that she gives off most of the time. “Wow,” she says.  _ “Someone’s _ cocky. Oh god, that wasn’t a pun, I don’t make puns--”

He slips another finger into her, which shuts her up nicely. Oh, good. She can’t dodge this the way she can with his kisses. He presses his wrist up against her clit so that she’s got something to grind against, and slides and rubs his fingers inside of her, pumping them luxuriously. She chokes gratifyingly, her hand tightening on his cock so he has to bite down on his lower lip to stop himself from making any humiliating noises that’ll cost him his hardwon highground. 

“Ffffuck,” she says, voice strained. “Your fingers are stupidly huge, has anyone ever told you that? I feel like I’ve got fucking--” 

“Motherfuck!” he curses as she pumps her hand over his dick, and she has to stop her incessant mindless spewing of words to just grin at him, like making him swear is some sort of extraordinary accomplishment and not something that happens every day. 

She tries so often to hide or bite back her smiles, to dampen them into something understated and ignorable. With his fingers inside of her, moving and making her squirm, she seems to have forgotten to even try. It’s the most entrancing thing he’s ever fucking seen, he can’t look away from her flushed face for even a moment. 

“You’re trying to drive me crazy,” he accuses roughly, the drag of her hand across his cock stealing what little composure he usually manages to hold onto with a whiteknuckled, struggling grip. 

“A h--handjobs enough for that? Not a high bar, then.” Her voice is unsteady as he fingers her, and it lights some sort of urgent fire in his veins. He needs to make her even  _ more _ unsteady. Steal all of her iron composure, break that unaffected monotone, take away her careful neutral mask. It’s already slipping, but he wants it _ all _ gone. 

He slips a third finger into her and _ grinds _ his wrist up against her clit. She makes a squeaky, breathless sort of noise for a moment before she quickly clamps down on it, and he  _ kisses _ her, deep and lingering, tasting. She tastes good. Smells good. Feels good, her fingers wrapped around his cock, his fingers up her cunt. His hand on the small of her back, sliding down her thigh and to her knee to lift it up so his fingers have more access, a better angle. She makes more delicious noises, now into his mouth, and he swallows them all down. 

She bites at his lip in retaliation, and he probably can’t make that move himself without piercing her with his tusks, fucking damn it. He groans, deep and rumbling, and she pumps him fast and rough, like it’s a race, like she’s trying to win this. He licks his way back into her mouth, and then settles his mouth against the vulnerable skin of her throat. 

If it’s a contest she wants, he’s going to fucking win it. 

She swears, hushed and shaky, and wraps the leg he’s lifting up around his waist, sinking down on his fingers a little bit, and she lets out a wavering moan that she bites off harshly at the tail end of it. He nibbles gently at her throat, thrilling at the little hitching noises she makes as he nips carefully with his teeth. 

“You absolute shithead, oh my god,” she hisses. “Fuck. That’s, that’s good, yeah, keep doing  _ that--”  _

He’s never concentrated so hard on something in his life, keeping his fingers steadily pumping into her as she tries to obliterate every thought in his head out of his skull via her grip on his cock. She keeps making helpless little twitching movements of her hips against his wrist, a needy roll of a movement. He  _ snarls _ against her throat with sheer overwhelmed need. Most people would maybe be scared by that, a half orc growling against an artery vein mid fuck. 

She groans instead, because she’s perfect. 

“Fuck off,” she says weakly. 

Oh. He’d said that out loud. 

She takes his cock and squeezes it, the pressure just right, dragging her palm up his cock, fingers lingering on the head of it, fondling and rubbing  _ just right-- _

He _ bites _ into her shoulder to stop himself from shouting--

She goes stiff and trembling as all of the breath gets punched out of her on the next thrust of his fingers, orgasming even as his come splatters onto her hand, inside of his pants. He pants harshly as his blood roars and rushes in his ears. 

“Fuck,” he says blankly. 

“Congrats on your deflowering,” she says inanely, because she’s an absolute moron that he’s humiliated to know. 

“It was a _ tie,” _ he says despairingly. 

“A-- oh my god,” she says, and  _ laughs, _ soft and fucked loose and warm by his touch, his fingers, his hand. Her eyes crinkle with amusement, and he can’t catch his breath for some reason. “You’re so fucking stupid,” she says warmly. 

“Piss off. You started it.” 

But neither of them stop it. It’s not the last time that they do this. Not even close. 

Dave’s used to the other knights ignoring her by now. She’s content with it. Considering how obnoxious they are the few times they don’t ignore her, she really prefers it to the alternative. She doesn’t need them anyways. She doesn’t need anyone. (She has Karkat.) 

So when they turn their focus on her while she’s trudging towards her next assignment (princess duty again, this time not even with Karkat, ugh), it’s an unpleasant surprise. She gives them her flattest, most unimpressed look in preparation for whatever bullshit they’re gonna spring on her now. 

“Lady Strider--” the apparent ring leader of the three knights says. 

“Sir Strider.” 

“--er, right. Sir Strider, we just wanted to check in with you, that you’re well.” 

“Doing good, thanks,” she says blandly, and moves to idly pass him. One of the knights moves to block her passage. Anger kicks up inside of her chest like a hornet’s nest, but she keeps her expression closed off. 

“It’s just that,” he continues on doggedly, “Gerard forgot something in the changing rooms the other day, and he saw you being  _ ravished _ by that orc.” 

Something inside of her goes cold. 

He puts a hand on her shoulder. He looks sympathetic, and worried. But she knows what real sympathy looks like now, real worry. It’s not that pretty and well put together. 

“It wasn’t like that,” she says. 

“You don’t have to defend him. We’ll protect you, Lady Strider.” 

“I wanted it.” 

“We can certainly remove that beast for you,” he says, ignoring her. So  _ eager _ for the perfect excuse to throw out the loud, shouty, unseemly half orc. “Just say the word.” 

Dave’s hand settles onto the pommel of her sword. 

“All knights, on horseback, now!” the head knight orders. “It’s an emergency situation!” 

They all start scrambling to put on their pants and boots, hurriedly strapping on swords and armor pieces. 

“The princess has been kidnapped by her half orc handmaiden! Time is of the essence! We must find and rescue her!” 

Karkat remembers, vivid and sudden, the soft way Kanaya and Rose had smiled at each other. Rose’s discontent with her mother, the throne, everything and everyone around her. He is overcome with the certainty that while the princess and the handmaiden may both be missing, no kidnapping has taken place. He also knows that he won’t be able to convince anyone of this, except for perhaps Dave. Not  _ him. _

He looks for Dave. Doesn’t see her. He finishes strapping on his armor pieces, and jogs up to the head knight, who looks down at him disdainfully. 

“I said time is of the essence!” he sneers. 

“I know,” he says tightly. “But Sir Strider needs to be informed of this.” 

“Strider  _ should have _ been guarding the princess, when her Highness was kidnapped by that brute. Instead, she was roughhousing with fellow knights. She is to be executed.” 

Karkat stops. Mouth hanging agape, mind empty and frozen. 

Dave isn’t supposed to be executed. She’s, she’s not like him. Sure, she’s ignored too, she’s underestimated, she’s disrespected. But it’s different. They all think she’s a dainty little thing that shouldn’t be allowed to hold a sword. They’re not supposed to  _ cut her head off.  _

“Move!” the head knight snaps, and Karkat does. He moves. Just not towards the stables. 

No one notices the half orc knight they all wish wasn’t here in the first place running off in the wrong direction, in all of the haste and chaos. Towards the dungeons. 

Well. That didn’t exactly go as planned. Not that she’d had much of a plan in the first place. Her brother would be so disappointed. Striders always have a master plan, is what he’d say, and he certainly lived by his words, all of his ‘a Strider never’s and ‘a Strider always’s. Plotting and scheming has never really been her forte, though. Evidently. 

She tugs lightly at the cold, tight shackles around her wrists. The chains jangle, and then come to an abrupt taut stop. She licks her split lip and tastes blood. She’s covered in bruises and cuts. She won, though. Trounced those gently smiling and oh so supportive assholes into the fucking dirt, bleeding and crying and so baffled and furious at being beaten by _ her.  _ She won, and now her prize is being chained up in some dank fucking dungeon. Great work, Strider.  _ Great _ work. 

A Strider isn’t supposed to rush in, hotheaded and stupid with anger, letting their emotions get the better of them like some sort of fucking child. That’s more Karkat’s style, who gets to be as overly emotional and loud as he wants to be, because he’s a dork ass loser who cares too much about  _ everything.  _

_ We’ll get rid of that beast for you.  _

Even now, those words make her lips curl with fury. She should’ve  _ killed  _ them. She’s already in the dungeon, after all. Might as well go the full nine yards. 

There’s shouting outside.  _ Familiar _ shouting. She goes still, heart in her throat. Have they put him in chains too, are they dragging him down here? Why? On what trumped up charge? Fuck, it could be anything. Motherfuckers. She struggles against her chains, anger renewed, until the shouting reaches her cell. 

There he is. Not in chains, but in armor, with his sword out and bloody, keys clutched in his other hand, eyes wide. 

“We have to get out of here, fucking  _ quick, _ holy shit,” he says. “We’re so fucked, we’re so fucking fucked.” 

He opens her cell door, springs for the chains around her wrists. 

“... Are you breaking me out?” she asks, stunned. 

_ “Obviously!”  _

“I’m touched,” she says, to hide the fact that she’s actually touched. 

“Fuck you! Come on, get up! We have to get as far away from here as possible, the queen wants your  _ head.”  _

“Woke up with a hangover, did she?” 

_ “You’re not funny!”  _

They kill a few more people, get on some horses, and run far, far away. Two outcast, unwanted knights, together. Karkat’s an ambitious man, and this isn’t what he’d wanted or imagined for himself. But trying to win the respect of people who loathe you is a losing game, he’s realized. A waste of fucking time. The only thing of worth from his time there is lying next to him, sharing warmth in their bedroll. 

“Fuck,” he breathes quietly to himself, looking at her in the soft light of the moon. Somehow, as ambitious and recklessly hopeful as he’d been, it had never occurred to him to expect something as grand as someone happily lying down next to him. Money, power, respect and fame, sure. But not this. Not something as amazing and not for him as _ this.  _

He closes his eyes, rolls over, and tries to go to sleep. 


End file.
